Posted
by
EditorDavid
on Sunday January 28, 2018 @07:34PM
from the creating-events dept.

"Posing as American activists, Russian government-linked trolls created 129 Facebook events between 2015 and 2017," writes CNN. An anonymous reader quotes their report:
On multiple occasions, the events prompted real Americans to take to the streets. In a written statement Facebook gave to the Senate Intelligence Committee released on Thursday, the social media network said that the events created by one Kremlin-linked troll group were seen by more than 300,000 Facebook users. About 62,500 users marked that they would attend the event, and an additional 25,800 expressed an interest in attending.

Facebook told Congress it does "not have data about the realization of these events," but CNN has previously found evidence that the Russian group successfully convinced Americans to attend the demonstrations. The events were organized on a range of divisive issues and were designed to pit Americans against each other.
"The company also told Congress it had removed Kaspersky Lab from a list of free anti-virus offerings it provides users."

On what planet did Putin and his cronies think the West wouldn't throw the kitchen sink at them in retaliation for the election hack?

Did these mongs REALLY think they could hold us off forever simply by gaslighting us on Twitter? ("there is no proof of collusion, there is no proof of hacking, whatabout this, whatabout that, etc etc). So fucking stupid.

On what planet did Putin and his cronies think the West wouldn't throw the kitchen sink at them in retaliation for the election hack?

Did these mongs REALLY think they could hold us off forever simply by gaslighting us on Twitter? ("there is no proof of collusion, there is no proof of hacking, whatabout this, whatabout that, etc etc). So fucking stupid.

The arrogance and naivete defies belief.

First of all, chill. The purpose was to get people riled up and divisive, and by being outraged you are playing into their hand.

Furthermore, if you are outraged don't propagate by posting about it - that just amplifies the effect.

Secondly, does this de-ligitimize at least one major riot here in the US? Was there (at least) one instance where US people did not feel strongly enough to protest, but were egged on by outside influences?

Doesn't that mean that there is *less* discontent in the US than what might be inferred from protests?

What "election hack?"?
One US political leader went to more parts of the USA and gave good speeches the people in that state responded to.
During the election they voted. The votes got counted and the vote got observed by party officials. People recalled who visited their state and gave a good speech.
People recalled who stayed in the costal states and did not give good speeches.
Be nice to more people all over the USA and win an election. No "election hack" needed.
Just find a candidate who can give a

Jesus how long did you have to wait for that first post. You seem to fail to grasp the better the first post, the more likely a paid US government propagandist. Yeah the US government staged coups and murdered millions, when Russia does that in the US, then complain otherwise STFU. The US deep state is disgusting, murderous filth, held in contempt globally by all reasonable people.

Don't first post morons, you makes you look really stupid and like you have no idea what so ever about the history of/. but ke

If the devil engages in a multi-billion dollar campaign designed to call into question the dangers of cigarette smoking while targeting mentally vulnerable people for said campaign then, yes. Yes you can.

It's a miracle I haven't felt the urge to drive around town attending all of the FB events that show up on my newsfeed. It's almost as if seeing an event listed in that way doesn't compel me to change my mind about a candidate or a policy issue. Amazing! But somehow it probably still cost Hillary the election, I'm sure. I'll check with Rachel Maddow for confirmation on that.

Call me crazy, but no one forced these people to go to these events. Were the meetups for the same political topics in person that they were advertised as? Was there some "bait and switch" thing going on here? Did people leave when they found things aren't what they expected?

If these participants all got together and found solidarity in their shared views, then I'd say the events functioned exactly as they should -- regardless of who organized it. Maybe the people who went are just embarrassed to admit to t

The goal is to cause chaos. The bait-and-switch approach is that you take advantage of a shocking event (mass shooting, disaster, etc) and let loose your army of bots to organize protests with 100,000 followers on one side, and an opposing event with 100,000 followers on the other side.

If nothing happens, meh, it cost you nothing except paying some guys in St. Petersburg to shitpost. Try again after the next shocking event.

If you get lucky, you get 500 protestors on one side of the street, and 500 counterprotestors on the other side of the street, and they start throwing insults, bricks, and molotovs at each other.

Then you sit back and enjoy the chaos you've created -- not just the localized disruption of the riot but the fact that everybody you lured into a riot leaves with hardened feelings against their opposition.

Lather, rinse, repeat. More chaos, more violence, and maybe you get really lucky and kick off a civil war. Your greatest geopolitical adversary basically punches itself in the face and off the global stage while you sit back and way "Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!"

Look upthread -- notice that some of the ACs are vehemently supporting one side of the story, and some of them are just as vehemently supporting the other side. Maybe only a few of them are actual information warfare guys. But it only takes a few to get the rest of the ACs (sincere readers with partisan opinions) to tear at each other's throats.

The locals would have noticed all the embassy workers herding them to speeches.
People all over the USA, in all professions, retired, mil, gov had the freedom to listen to the speeches and vote for who they wanted.
More states liked one candidate who could give a great speech in their state over a candidate who used short media releases.

Some make believe accounts made some make believe events that other accounts (make believe or not) said they were going.

"not have data about the realization of these events," WFT, CNN?

A reporter reports about half the story, how hard can it be to research if these said "events" were real or not? My guess, none ever happened. But, isn't a quality news report one that has the complete story? This report isn't sufficiently researched to have any utility besides stirring the pot.

300k is just the fake events that apparently some Americans did actually attend. The number of people who saw Russian posts is higher.

Anyway, eyeballs are not a good metric. Influence is, but influence is hard to measure. This story is very significant because it appears that there is evidence that people definitely were influenced to the point of attending protests organized by Russia.

We are slowly moving towards acceptance. First it was "this never happened", then it was "the posts only reached a few hundred people", after that "no one was actually influenced by this stuff".

Read the post histories of some of the folks on these threads where Mueller, Russia, Trump are involved and try to guess who is associated with Russia propaganda mills. Then go look at the user histories. You think there isn't Russian propaganda active today on/.?

I used to post and interact here a lot, but this place has gone the way of reddit and r/theDonald... sad to see a once-relevant tech site get so taken over by politics and shit-posters. Between this and the "5G IS BEING SOCIALIZED OMG FEAR THE CHINESE" article above... wow. Just, wow.

This story never ends, Russia did this, Russia did that, always very little or circumstantial evidence, or something like "up to 6 fake accounts were made, with over 32 followers!"

Unless something significantly concrete, ground slamming and thorough comes out which outright proves some kind of real huge conspiracy, then all this looks like is crazy people on a witch hunt.

FUTHERMORE even if it were real, it's up to people to vote with their conscience / brain, assuming they have one.

On top of this, even IF the Russia email hack Hillary thing is real (or was Russians) the point should be the bloody evidence revealed, don't play the distraction game, if her emails clearly proved she was a liar or trouble or whatever (I don't even know what it was) why are we desperately trying to look the other way?

Note: NOT an American, didn't even vote in your election and I know Trump is an idiot, but the republicans didn't win your election, the fucking democrats lost it by omitting Bernie.

So tired of this political stuff on/., what next? Another in depth article about how every single white male programmer is without question a rapist or something?

Just because you're ignorant of the facts doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Bots have flooded the internet with comments very similar to yours, repeatedly insisting that "there is no evidence" of Russian criminality in attacking US elections. Well, unfortunate, because there's a crushing amount of evidence. Why hell, Russian hackers in Cozy Bear were caught red-handed by the Dutch -- the stupid motherfuckers helpfully left an IP camera running, so we now know the identities of most of the hackers and intellig

Do you honestly believe that Russian hackers not only had an internet-connected camera running inside their national spying agency, but in fact had it aimed so you could see the Red Square? Because while that may make perfect sense in a movie, it really doesn't in real life.

And why would the Dutch give away such a massive advantage? Why not just keep spying? Ah wait, let me answer that: because in the Netherlands there is a lot of discussion at the moment about a new law that would massively increase the po

You might need to work on your English phrasing and comprehension, Ivan. You used English in ways a native English speaker wouldn't.

It's kind of like how some guys in eastern europe actually think that "terribad" or "nothingburger" are real english words rather than meme-words made up by some people for whom english isn't their primary language.

Or how some misogynist "anti-feminist" AC's on slashdot use "the females" where a native english speaker would use "women"

Well I appreciate it because it confirms a personal belief I've been holding since the elections: Russia (the nation.. not the "people") has been playing both sides of the board. A divided USA would be nothing but beneficial to them. A new civil war (wishful thinking on their part) would be a wet dream come true. The same assholes you see screaming about Trump are the same assholes you see screaming about Clinton. Both sides want to create bandwagons to "stop" the other.

Parent posts demonstrating the two truths and a lie technique. The reddit-style one sentence per line formatting makes it a weaker post than it could have been, so take care to learn from his mistakes.

LIke the 20k emails? Or maybe the server that should not have existed? How about the dude deleting emails that should not have been? The smashed phones? Or the emails that talk about blaming russia? Or the billions missing from haiti?

---"Trump is totally, unbelievably fucked......when the adults are back in charge in Washington, there are going to be SERIOUS, life-changing repercussions for Putin and his friends.... This is going to be FUN to watch."---

Good fucking grief, the party-rah-rah-rah in this. Your 2018 is going to be as disappointing as your 2016.

Adults don't think treason or confrontation with Russia or anything resulting from the whole situation is FUN. In fact, calling a national disaster fun because it humiliates a political party you dislike is the sort of thing Trump does. You're just another symptom of the same juvenile insanity Trump suffers from.

But we do carpet bomb them with smart ordinance, like cluster bombs. Cluster bombs where the bomblets look like toys to children. So when it's unexploded ordnance, they can play with the bomblets. Until they go boom.

Four Trump campaign and administration officials have been charged with serious crimes.

For lying either after the election or crimes long before the election. Which makes the special investigation moving beyond the original intent and your next point rather moot.

Donald Trump committed treason with Russia, and committed obstruction of justice in his cover-up.

The investigation about Trump Russian collusion only has arrests for things that never occurred during the election in which said collusion was supposed to happen. You know it's a witch because the scope has moved beyond "Trump Russia collusion during the election". Now, it's about "find any dirt and use that hopefully to impeach Trum [go.com]

It's a fucking witchhunt generated by a secret society of FBI agents (their fucking words) and paid for by Democrats. It's never been remotely POSSIBLY true. If you weren't so blinded by bias, you'd stop and think for a moment: what would Trump or Putin gain by actually colluding?

1. The words you are quoting were a joke. They recovered the other emails to prove it. People like you who stretch tiny things like a single text message into vast conspiracies really need to get mental help, or at least change to some slightly more ethical job.

2. Putin hated Hillary. Trump was seen as more useful to Putin's goals and he has been particularly useful. I'm not going to list them all, but needless to say Putin thinks he can get by with more on Trump's watch.

Impressive, how many lies you've managed to cram into one sentence. Going for the world record, son?

Russia spends upwards of $US1b on computation propaganda and information warfare every year. We know that the FSB is emptying out Russian universities of anybody who can contribute to their information warfare campaign. It has been noticed. And it won't go unpunished.

Transparent public diplomacy, and Russian-style covert information warfare are completely different. The US budget for that kind of public outreach is a miniscule fraction of Russia's spend on covert information warfare.

But i'm with you and do love these posts.. as you said, the US has been doing the exact same thing for decades against many countries, but the US citizens seem to have a serious issue when it is done to them? They didnt seem to mind having decent democratically elected leaders thrown out to bring in tyrants in the name of "freedom".

The world doesn't owe Russia "fairness" or "respect". Russia is NOT equal to the West. Russia is a pissant with terrible demographics, rampant crime and corruption, and an economy smaller than Italy's.

In what universe does Russia get to demand to be "equal" to America?? Dream on!!

Russia gets no respect, because it is run by a bloodthirsty fascist who is morally depraved on just about every axis you want to compare with the West.

I don't think the user base here is heavily leaning (at least not to the extent that most online communities are) in one direction or the other based on comments posted here, though I suppose you could claim that the editors have a particular leaning.

I suspect that they post these articles not out of any particular political allegiance, but simply because they get more traffic and therefor generate more revenue.

And there are zombie accounts that hatch like little reptiles with modpoints. It's how creimer gets his spam links modded up. It's also why all of the sensible posts are modded down.

Notice how two years ago you could say something and not be modded down purely because someone disagreed you? Remember two years ago when all the stories were actual attempts at tech news and not biased anti-Russian spam?

The Hillary viewpoint with the DNC and Podesta Emails boils down to this:

"We would have won if those meddling kids didn't expose our lies"

It's literally something out of Scooby Doo.

Trump and trumpism isn't the result of the goddamned Russians, it's the result of 40+ years of stultification of the American Public. Ever since the Southern Strategy. The Republicans have been courting the idiots ever since then, and don't fucking argue this point with me, because it was Nixon's own words as to w

Actually, it's "we would have won if those meddling kids had exposed our opponent's lies evenly with ours." There's no doubt the GOP does plenty of unsavory things that would come out if you dumped their server contents, but the leak selectively left them alone.

I don't excuse the democrats for anything, they dug their own grave, but they are correct that they would've won if they'd had the company they deserved in the grave. Because apparently

It's hard for the Dems to attack Trump on policy, because he has made any attack on populist ideas into "political correctness" and other easily dismissed slogans.

He's very hard to criticise because he's already so offensive and so far divorced from reality that any sort of appeal to the decency or truth is ineffective. In fact his base revels in him being that way.

Short of creating some kind of left-wing version of Trump to oppose him, which let's be honest none of us want to see, the only thing anyone can

He's very hard to criticise because he's already so offensive and so far divorced from reality that any sort of appeal to the decency or truth is ineffective.

Speaking of being divorced from reality, AmiMoJo, remember how I adopted the sig "The one straight white male in new Star Trek will be portrayed as evil or incompetent" back before Star Trek Discovery premiered? You know, because he was the only straight white male on an SJW show, and so I knew that he would ultimately have to be revealed as either evil or incompetent--because SJW's, as much as they would deny it, really HATE straight white males.

Why not? Russia's information warfare campaign is fascination and world-changing, and VERY interesting to nerds. After all, most of the vectors of Putin's information assault on the West are enabled by the Web and social media.

The worst part is that we knew it was going to happen and exactly what they would do. The leaked GCHQ manual on trolling laid out all the techniques that Russia is using. GCHQ uses them too... But apparently forgot to develop any ways to detect or defend against them.

Since GCHQ knew, that means the NSA knew as well, as also failed to do anything about it.

That's the dirty secret -- propaganda and astroturfing works. Social media is a dream come true for the practitioners of the Soviet-style dark arts of mass brainwashing and information-attack.

Which makes the fecklessness and arrogance of the social media barons ("this time it's differet", "the Internet changes everything") all the more galling. They sniffed their own techno-libertarian farts, believed their own bullshit, and then, due to their obstinate refusal to come to terms with the destructive power of their platforms, nearly destroyed the republic.

I'm not holding my breath, waiting for fucking idiots like Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg to wake up. I'm out. If Russian and Chinese security-state fascists are given a free pass to attack us, really the only thing we can do is opt out and do the only thing we can do individually to make things as hard as possible for the enemy.

You know, the fallacy of the above post is that it completely ignores the fact that most of the talking points actually were generated by a handful of alternate media types like Dave Rubin, Milo Yiannopoulous, Gavin McGinnes, Steven Crowder, and even Ben Shapiro. Less important but still important were Charlie Kirk, Stefan Molyneux, Ann Coulter, Jack Posobiec, Mark Dice, and Larry Elder.

it's a fact that as people age they lose mental facilities. It's called "Age related cognitive decline' and there's a lot of effort going into studying it. Thing is, most folks think about people getting older and jump straight to Grandpa forgetting where his keys are style Alzheimers. But there's a huge range in the amount of decline. Grandpa might know where his keys and he might know the different between reality and fantasy on a moment to moment basis, but his critical thinking skills might have atrophi

QuoteThese days, a consensus of neuroscientists agree that brain development likely persists until at least the mid-20s – possibly until the 30s.

The fact that our brains aren’t developed until the mid 20s means that “legal adults” (those age 18+) are allowed to make adult decisions, without fully mature brains. Someone who is 18 may make riskier decisions than someone in their mid-20s in part due

Data-driven microtargeted propaganda, run off incredibly detailed and sophisticated models populated with data stolen from American voter databases and social media. Incredibly powerful, unbelievably accurate. It was like a scalpal.

The Putlerists hit America with an information superweapon that was every bit as powerful as Stuxnet -- perhaps moreso.

Last February, a top Russian cyber official told a security conference in Moscow that Russia was working on new strategies for the “information arena